I never think about poetry except when I'm writing it. I mean my poetry.

Anybody who writes doesn't like to be misunderstood.

There are some friends you don't meet for twenty years and when you meet them again it's as if no twenty years has happened - you're lucky when that happens. I feel the same about books.

In fact a lot of them I think are absolute baloney. Those Charles Olsens and people like that. At first I was interested in seeing what they were up to, what they were doing, why they were doing it. They never moved me in the way that one is moved by true poetry.

When I talk of hearing a poet's voice speaking, I always think of it as in the presence of the man.

I don't think of myself all the time.

But I hang on to books. I love them. I even think they're very nice decor in a room - far better than paintings... That's not quite true!